This is a chapter from my new book, Ravenswood: The Lost Paradise. It’s available on Amazon. The book is about a town in Queens, New York, that vanished.
Copyright © 2023 SYDNEY SCHUSTER – All Rights Reserved
In 1884 the entire southern end of baronial Ravenswood was taken out by an arson fire — ironically, the same way it began.
Margaret and David Fenton decided their slice of peaceful suburb between John Englis’ and William Nelson’s houses was perfect for a nasty, smelly, noisy food cannery. They added a 50ʹ×100ʹ two-story brick factory; a two-story wooden box factory; two 40ʹ×60ʹ three-story warehouses; an engine house; and 140 workers tromping around.
Erie Preserving was a family business owned by James and Clarence M. Fenton of Buffalo, David Fenton’s nephews. They had factories in Buffalo, Brant, East Hamburg, and Fairhaven, New York, St. Catharines in Ontario, Canada, and a business called J.K. Armsby & Co. in Chicago.
In 1884 Erie Preserving was in a lot of trouble. In April the company estimated it owed $200,000 ($6.08 million in 2022 dollars) against $326,932 in assets — a situation, snarked Bradstreet’s, “not regarded as a favorable showing by the trade.” Erie Preserving claimed what pushed it over the fiscal cliff was a $50,000 check from J.K. Armsby that bounced.
In a suspicious coincidence, there was a massive fire at the Ravenswood plant the next month. Losses were $60,000 against $40,000 of insurance.
In July, Erie Preserving suspended business and went into receivership. The Buffalo plant was seized by the sheriff on July 24, on complaints of unpaid loans by Margaret Fenton ($67,810) and W.H. Purcell & Co. of Chicago ($10,000).
Erie Preserving managed to stay afloat by moving to new towns, changing its name, and building new factories that always burned down. It was also known as the Buffalo Conserve Company and Niagara Preserving.
In 1887 its Buffalo factory caught fire, the official story being that flames from a capper traveled up some gasoline pipes that were next to some naptha tanks on the roof. The top two floors were “badly damaged,” according to the New York Times, but the estimated $40,000 loss was covered by insurance. Whew! Miraculously, all 250 employees escaped unharmed. The factory caught fire again in 1890. “The cause of the fire is a complete mystery,” deadpanned the The Buffalo Courier.
Erie Preserving replaced its Ravenswood facility with one in East Hamburg, New York, in 1890. It, too, burned to a crisp around 1895. Then there was a fire at Erie Preserving’s Orchard Park, New York, plant in 1896, and Erie Preserving’s warehouse at the North Collins depot in Buffalo in 1899. What were the odds?
On May 24, 1884, the Erie Preserving plant in Ravenswood blew up. The official blame fell on some wooden boxes that caught fire inside the box factory, a wood-frame building behind the two-story brick canning factory. Both were destroyed, and the fire spread quickly to the rest of the plant and five homes nearby. “The greatest excitement prevailed in the neighborhood,” reported the New York Times, “and the residents for half a mile north of the fire were busy moving out their furniture.”
The Long Island City firefighters were stymied upon arriving with their antiquated hand engines, only to find no fire hydrants existed in the area. The fire was eventually extinguished by four fire tugboats belonging to the Standard Oil operation next door in Hunter’s Point, sent to ensure their oil tanks didn’t go the way of the cannery after a loud explosion was heard.
It turns out what was exploding was fruit. One news report described “a constant fusillade of exploding cans” spewing preserved foods over an impressive radius, giving “the impression of widespread disaster.”
A rumor spread that the Standard Oil plant was ablaze. (It wasn’t.) The inmates on Blackwell’s Island, who had a premium view of the event, were in a panic. By late afternoon the excitement was over, but the screaming had only just begun.
Some volunteer firefighters were injured but no deaths were reported, except for one horse trapped in a burning stable. The fire started at lunchtime, when no one was inside the buildings, according to the New York Sun. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which was close enough to actually send a reporter to cover the debacle but didn’t, embellished on the reportage of other papers instead, hysterically proclaiming: “the employees fled from the building for safety” and “the Bodine Castle … will be a total loss.” (They didn’t, and it wasn’t.) The Elmira Sunday Morning Tidings screeched: “One hundred men, women, and children were employed there, and escaped with great difficulty.” Actually there were 130 workers, but whatever. The New York Sun said they were all safe, enjoying “little picnic parties in the grounds under the trees.” Unfortunately, they all lost their jobs.
The carnage was widely reported; the more it was repeated, the bigger it got. The Watertown Re-Union reported “the fire extended three or four blocks.” The Sun bemoaned the “ten acres of smouldering ruins along the river bank.” The Elmira Sunday Morning Tidings wailed that “All houses for a mile along the river front are destroyed.” The fire was catastrophic only for one block.
The Eagle decried the loss of “the Ravenswood Terra Cotta Works,” something that didn’t exist. The New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company (the only such factory in Ravenswood, if that’s what the Eagle meant) was a quarter-mile distant from the fire and unharmed.
The only paper to actually send a reporter to the scene was the Newtown Register, whose meticulous description of the area exactly corresponds to its depiction on the 1879 Taylor map (top of page).
That’s not to say the fire didn’t leave a big mess. Besides Erie Preserving’s canning and box factories and a mountain of ex-wood on its dock, the casualties included old mansion outbuildings such as stables and carriage barns, one of which was used as a lumber yard. Some smart thinking there on someone’s part.
Erie Preserving had parked 700,000 feet of lumber on its dock that was incinerated. There was even more lumber, dumped into the river to keep it from burning. Most of that floated away with the tide, landing on private beaches of lucky residents who refused to give it back.
In a naked attempt to pad their losses for a bigger reimbursement, Erie Preserving estimated their loss at $100,000. It wasn’t anywhere near that much. In the end the Fentons got a $40,000 insurance payoff against $60,000 in assessed losses. Two months after the fire, Erie Preserving went into receivership.
The genuinely lamentable losses were two once-glorious mansions next to the factory. Shipbuilder John Englis’ home burned down, and William Nelson’s top floor was ruined with water by firefighters. The Cadwell/Fraser house, which the Fentons owned, somehow wasn’t damaged much, which was quite strange considering it was the closest of the three mansions to the fire. The wooden railing around John Harris’ roof was burned. John Bodine’s property caught sparks, too, but was rescued by Standard Oil tugboats; its damage was limited to wooden fences and outbuildings.
So while the “ten acres of desolation” The Sun melodramatically blathered about wasn’t quite that much, the magnificent Englis house really was a charred memory. The property became part of Lane & De Groot Company, a marine equipment manufacturer (1901 E. Belcher Hyde). The Nelsons let their insurance company total their place, and the property was sold to James Gillies & Sons for a granite yard. The Cadwell/Fraser house became the Pringle Memorial Home.
In just four hours, two jewels of Ravenswood were lost forever, because the Fentons wanted to make a quick buck.
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Copyright © 2023 SYDNEY SCHUSTER – All Rights Reserved
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